Daryl Morey Tempers Expectations on Yao Ming

The Rockets’ GM tells the team website that his big fella might not be 100% until next season’s Playoffs. Yikes: “On Yao Ming’s progress and the minutes he can play next year: ‘I don’t know. I think for sure by playoff time we think he can be 100 percent back, which is the most important time, obviously. He can be back to where he was last year when he was playing at a high level. What his exact ramp-up will be, I don’t think anybody knows exactly how that will happen. Yao is on schedule with the doctors. I think he’s at two-thirds of his body weight on the treadmill. Each week it ramps up a little bit and each week he’s responded great so we expect him to be back at the start of the preseason. If it’s not exactly that, we’re OK with it. Again, we’re focused on having him in the playoffs next year and clearly we’d like to have him for a large (percentage), if not all of the regular season as well.”‘